Eye-on-Retail Daily Tipsheet Archives

Costco April Comp Sales +3% “Costco reported net sales of $9.42 billion for the month of April, the four weeks ended April 30, 2017, an increase of five percent from $8.98 billion during the similar period last year.”Press release

Cabela’s Q1 Comp Sales -8.9% “…while apparel categories comped negatively for the quarter, they have shown signs of improvement and were down less than the consolidated comp.”Press release

Wal-Mart seeks anti-corruption certification, in talks with regulators at Reuters. “The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) developed the so-called anti-corruption compliance program and Wal-Mart is hoping to be the first U.S. company to get certified under it, said Jay Jorgensen, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president and global chief ethics and compliance officer.”Read more

Walmart U.S. food boss says ‘basics’ a company focus; addresses Single Parent scholarship event by Nancy Peevy at Talk Business. “Charles Redfield spoke to an estimated 220 suppliers and community leaders…“I’ve been in my position for 18 months or so right now and I think we’ve fundamentally changed every single process of how we operate our stores to get the basics right – to satisfy customers.” Redfield said.”Read more

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Staples Revamps Marketing in Bid to Shed Retail-Industry Baggage by Matthew Townsend at Bloomberg. “The rebranding campaign kicks off next week with nationwide television commercials in which stores are nonexistent and products are only shown in passing. There’s no mention of discounts either.”See TV ad/Read more

Doug McMillon Meets With College Students via University of Arkansas. “Students in the U of A’s apparel merchandising and product development program got a behind-the-scenes look at Walmart by sitting in on a corporate Saturday Morning Meeting and then visiting with CEO Doug McMillon.”Read more

Can Wal-Mart’s Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete With Amazon? by Brad Stone & Matthew Boyle at Bloomberg. “AMAZON IS DOMINATING” reads a slide on a large screen behind him. In the video, Lore presents a plan to bet Wal-Mart’s future not on e-commerce standbys such as books, electronics, and toys, but on product areas only now becoming popular online, including apparel, fresh food, and “everyday essentials” like drugstore items. “We’ll need to take the offensive, swim upstream,” Lore says. “As Sam Walton said, ‘Opportunity lies in the opposite direction.’ ”Read more

Amazon Is Spending Insane Amounts of Money on Research by Lindsay Rittenhouse at The Street. “Amazon beat German automaker Volkswagen AG’s global research and development spending in 2016, which ranked number one from 2012 to 2015, by spending more than $16 billion. And, it may have just secured its lead with a record $4.8 billion outlay in its first quarter, according to Bloomberg data.”Read more

Best Buy Will Now Sell Vivint’s Smart Home Installation Services by Leena Rao at Fortune. “The new deal, which was announced on Thursday, places Vivint experts in more than 400 of the electronics retailer’s stores so that they can give customers advice about smart home devices and installation.”Read more

Fred’s April Comp Sales +1.2% “Fred’s total sales for the month decreased 3.0% year-over-year to $159.1 million from $163.9 million in April 2016.”Press release

Speculation emerges about HSN’s future and ‘frenemy’ QVC by Margie Manning at Tampa Bay Business Journal. “Jason Bazinet, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc., raised the question during a Wednesday morning conference call, citing a difficult seven or eight quarters for HSN.”Read more